In My Name is Not Easy, the impact of forced assimilation on culture and identity is the central external conflict. Since the arrival of white Europeans in what is now the United States of America, those in power have visited genocide on Indigenous cultures and made them a minority on the fringes of society. The government, from the time of its inception, stole Native American land and forced tribes into poverty on sparsely funded and neglected reservations. The racism and white supremacy of this history is clear in this theme.

In the 1950s and 1960s, boarding schools, particularly religious-themed schools, made agreements with state governments to bring in Native American students. By separating children from their families and communities, the administrators of the schools believed that they would be doing Native American children a service by forcing the children to assimilate to white, Christian society’s mores. They believed that by removing these children from family, community, language, tradition, and culture, they could remake Native American children according to white culture’s ideals. These schools employed physical, emotional, and philosophical abuse in attempts to achieve their goals. Children and their families often had no choice but to attend these schools.